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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341605">Dead Men Tell No Lies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/helshotashades/pseuds/helshotashades'>helshotashades</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hetalia: Axis Powers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>I swear, Kinda, M/M, Necrophilia, but like not as bad as my immortal, i swear im not goffik, tbh this is basically just a goth au, there is a dead cat graveyard, there is no corpse-banging</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:34:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341605</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/helshotashades/pseuds/helshotashades</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No, seriously. </p>
<p>A philosophical, vaguely gothic tirade about why neither Greece nor Turkey will ever, in a million years, get out of denial and actually do something about the UST that surrounds them both.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Greece/Turkey (Hetalia)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dead Men Tell No Lies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It is true that every proper country has killed before. How could they not? Some are born from the fires of war, born to hold a weapon and use it to kill. Others are born from the machinations of old men, an alliance, a schism, but one way or another, everyone is born from blood. It is a philosophical parallel to the humans they care for. But, as countries have no parents, not really, the circumstances of their birth shape them. Veneziano, for example, was born into a world where corruption ran rampant, and in response, he became a malleable-looking idiot that people could manipulate. Of course, he has his core principles, of which he will never deviate from, but so does every country. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Countries born into war become warriors; countries born into civil unrest become demagogues; countries born into apathy become religious. Countries of ideals are better than countries of people, and countries of people are better than countries of war. America tries so hard to pretend that he is a country of ideals, but everyone knows otherwise. Nobody is </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>stupid. It’s a stupid bias, as far as Greece is concerned, since every country is protective of their borders and if war would benefit them, they would destroy another country without remorse. Besides, even China, who by all right should be the most pacifistic of them all, a country born from ideal alone, wants to rule the globe as he did so many years ago. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Greece himself was born from a schism, the split of the Roman Empire, less because of religious differences and more because of struggles for money and power. Most of his neighbors and close friends would say that he was laid-back, a pacifist, the model man-made country, and Greece likes to believe that. Turkey would describe him as a brat, first and foremost, and a lunatic second. Greece is self-aware enough to admit that sometimes he harbors fantasies of wiping Turkey off the map, of taking back what is rightfully his, even though Turkey is no real threat to him or his people, nor is Anatolia ‘rightfully his’. What Greece is not self-aware enough to admit is that it is not because he hasn’t forgiven Turkey for those long years under his rule. It has been over two centuries, the men and women who have hated most religiously are mostly dead. It’s much like the life cycle of an ordinary human. Every two months, humans are entirely different creatures, and every two centuries countries are entirely different creatures. But both keep their scars, and scars, while they may fade with time, sometimes never disappear. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Mostly, when the nations of Europe describe a country forged in war (how passé, what a barbaric way to be born, they whisper, uncaring that only a few centuries ago they almost worshipped those who did as gods above gods, called them strong and powerful and warriors, and turned green with envy at their power), they turn to Turkey, a relic of a bygone era. Sometimes America will interrupt and skillfully change the subject. Greece wonders at that, because Turkey isn’t quite the warmongering brute that America is, that Greece wishes he was. But then again, nobody else, except for maybe Egypt, has seen Turkey after a battle. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Turkey tended to the corpses of his own people with care befitting warriors fallen in battle, but even the corpses of his enemies were taken care of. Honor never dictated it, but Turkey went into battlefields anyways and carefully closed their eyes. Seeing blood and guts strewn everywhere might be cause to vomit, but the eyes are what make most people crazy, what makes them scream like Achilles did over poor Patroclus’s body. Turkey closes them so that when they are collected, nobody has to see the milky white film over their comrades’ eyes. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Greece wishes that it was because Turkey considers all the people of the world to be his, and doesn’t just the thought makes him boil with rage? But in reality, it’s because Turkey finds beauty in the contrast, in the unmoving stillness that is a fallen warrior with their eyes shut, as if sleeping. Peaceful in the end despite the gory end at scimitar or arrow. As far as Greece knows, Turkey’s never quite gotten around to actually fucking a corpse. Greece has, once. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Still, Greece can’t count the number of times he’d seen Turkey sporting an erection during his little ritual. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Greece would like to think that that is the only reason why he rises to Turkey’s baiting, but that’s not true in the slightest. Greece has never been uncomfortable with people seeing his body, nor has he cared whether or not they become aroused at the sight. Turkey had never touched, not the corpses, nor Greece himself when he played dead to get out of state affairs. No, Greece is hardly disgusted at the fact that Turkey might get off on his lax form while he sleeps. It’s mostly just frustration. Frustration, because he never can bring himself to do anything about the odd prickly feeling in his chest that is Turkey patching him up after a particularly brutal fight, nor can he bring himself to give permission to Turkey to do whatever he wants while Greece is resting from his injuries. Hell, he can’t even allow himself to admit that he is jealous, jealous that he will never get to watch Turkey taking pleasure from his form while he sleeps off the painkillers that Turkey is so fond of. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Turkey will never indulge himself, nor will he ever mention it, because he’d find it disrespectful. He finds comfort and peace in the idea of falling in battle, and he would never disrupt the rest of the weary. Greece would like to indulge him, wants to know what a disrespectful Turkey would look like, a Turkey who flouts the very honor he holds so dear. And yet he cannot bring himself to push for it, even as he knows it will be received well. Greece sometimes finds Turkey at veteran’s burial grounds and in battlefields when he is in town. Greece once felt him in a clearing some years back, and had gone there intent on chasing him off. Instead, he’d found a quiet little graveyard full of tombstones with the names of some of the stray cats Greece had fed who had wandered off and never come back. He imagines that it’s because they died fighting. A little angel sits, napping at the head of the plot of land, and it is unmistakably Greece himself. Greece realizes that it is less of a graveyard and more of a shrine to him. He leaves flowers there every year. Turkey never takes them, nor does he respond to the little card dangling off the ribbon, and that’s more than enough for Greece to know that Turkey probably is as deep in denial as he is. They will never come out of it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And it is a never, because nations are stubborn by nature, would rather send millions to their deaths than admit that they were wrong, that they want restraint. America holds to this very day an obstinate hatred of Vietnam for killing her alter, the same way that America slew his own. No, Greece will never ask for it, and neither will Turkey.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Behold, O Mother of Goth, at thy feet a miserable sinner, a slave of Hetalia, who has recourse to thee and trusts in thee.</p>
<p>I do not deserve that thou shouldst even look at me; but I know that thou having seen thy life's work wither and die at the hands of sinners, hast the greatest desire to instruct them in the proper ways.</p>
<p>Thou art, then, my hope and my help. Thou hast to save me by thy intercession.</p>
<p>Help me, for the love of Goth; extend thy hand to a miserable creature who has fallen, and recommends himself to thee.</p>
<p>By my sins I have lost divine grace, and with it my soul; I now place myself in thy hands.</p>
<p>Tell me what I must do to recover thy favor, and I will immediately do it. My sins against Goth send me to thee that thou mayst help me; and will that I should have recourse to thy mercy, but also thy intercession may help me to save my soul from this pit that is Hetalia.</p>
<p>To thee, then, I have recourse; do thou, who carried the heart of bone, carry my soul out of this pit; pardon me, and forgive me; show how thou canst enrich those who trust in thee. </p>
<p>Amen.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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